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Doom 3 System Requirements Revealed
The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle's Computing column has got the Doom 3 minimum system requirements. Biggest eye-opener: 384 MB of memory. Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order. RAM chip manufacturers should be salivating about now. You'll also need a 1.5-GHz processor and a GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 graphics card or better."
is it just me or is anyone else suprised?
even the desktops i order at work come with more than the minimum requirements (1gb ram, 2.4+ processor, geforce 4 (or equiv)).
but i suppose this is minimum requirements...recommended will be much more.
When the first DOOM was released I had a few friends who said that needing a 486 PC just for a game was insane.
They upgraded after playing the game on someone else's PC.
Ooooh, you mean the Doom 3 interactive slide show? That sounds about right then.
Wait a year and buy the same system used for two hundred bucks.
Sometimes patience really is a virtue.
KFG
I'll trade my little brother for a Radeon 9800XT before Doom3 hits the shelves! PLEASE!
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I feel that the world will be an overall happier place if more people have more RAM.
Frankly, even if people may not realize it, they'll be *much* better off having more than 256 MB RAM. Dell etc. are definitely not benefitting their consumers by including only 256 mb ram in these behemoth computers people buy, especially if people are looking into doing serious photo editing, and DV. And if you are running XP, how can you expect to survive with 256? This is so frustrating...
P.S. Half-life 2 requirements, Gabe Newell:
Ideally, one should have a 2.4 Ghz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 9 enabled graphics card to fully partake in the title. Those with less powerful components shouldn't worry about upgrading unless their system specs fall below a 1.2 Ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 7 compatible graphics card.
Of course, when HL2 game was due to be publish 25 years ago, these requirements were insane.
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486 processor operating at a minimum of 66MHz or any Pentium® /Athlon® processors
8 MB RAM
20 MB of uncompressed hard disk space
100MB of free hard drive space for the
Windows swap file (in addition to install space)
Seems like quite a jump for just one point.
Capability
That's just a shorthand way of saying "we require pixel shaders".
--- I do not moderate.
This should be considered a minimum for LOADING the game. I've played most of the first person shooters out there for the last few years. 256MB of RAM, or even 384MB is too little. Even with a nice graphics card your framerates will be very very low. I think if anyone wants to play and enjoy any of the games lately you'll need a minimum of 512, and even at that you'll need a gig to be comfortable. I think id is in a position where they can't raise the bar to 512 because they'd lose out on sales of people buying the game that had less. I think these people will purchase the game and realize they need more and go out and buy it.
That's completely unreasonable, because it would require someone to buy a 256 MB module, a 128 MB Module, and a 2 MB module. What the hell were they thinking?
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To play Doom, I remember having to boot my 386 without loading the TSRs....
</old man voice>
*hits nearest young'un with cane*
-fragbait
Pardon my hostility, but this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Games, and specifically iD software, have always pushed the limits of the technology available to the public. Personally I think it's a great thing that they can come out with a game that is so advanced it can't even run at optimal settings on an existing consumer machine (when launched, at least). Telling people to only code to what's available would stop the evolution of graphics, coding, everything related to computers.
Look, these days, there will be 2 main types of people that will buy this game.
1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.
2) Newskool FPS gamer kids. They take their gaming pretty seriously, and having the latest hardware is pretty much a competitive issue to them. If you find any of these guys with less than 512mb of RAM or a 3D card older than a GeForce 3, chances are they don't have the money to buy Doom 3 anyway.
The hardware requirements stated are really light for a game of that genre, especially considering the target market. I think the poster is rather off-target by insinuating that this is a problem.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
No ... In fact, I remember Carmack being annoyed with the naming scheme for the GF4 MX cards. Their performance is hardly comparable with a "real" GF4 ... and I don't honestly think an MX is up to par -- at all -- for Doom III.
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The Doom games were always a showcase for the engine's technology. It probably won't be for a year or two before developers that license the technology start hitting the full capabilities of the engine. When that happens, I look for the current minimum requirements to go up so plan accordingly for the games that will be built on the engine in the near future if you are going to upgrade your hardware. I think that the current recommended requirement will soon be the minimum when you see the next wave of games built on the technology that iD has created.
Oh, come on. It's not like those ID developers are rocket scientists. Oh, wait...